Power to the plant life

When spec'ing out the tank and lab monitoring equipment I would need, I completely overlooked a fairly important metric: power consumption for the lights. Yes, I've estimated the power requirements, based on the manufacturer's performance claims, but I haven't actually measured them. So what's the best way to do that?

I could sample the power draw with an ammeter coil around the power cable for the LED light fixture, but then I'd have to estimate the fluxuation over time as the light warms up, and I'd have to estimate how long the lights were on, and the temperature of the room... Oy!

Fortunately, there's a fairly simple device I can use that will monitor the power used over time without really getting in the way or requiring regular care and mainenance. I can just plug the lights into a pass-thru power monitor (like this one) and it will record the actual power consumed over time for as long as I leave it connected.

This particular one doesn't have any sort of data recording or broadcasting feature, so I'll have to enter the readings manually, but I'm already doing that for a few other metrics, so it's not really a problem.

Adaptive supplemental lighting

It also occurs to me that I should be able to devise a lighting system that takes into account the measured lux levels and adjusts the powered lights until the required lux level is reached. This would allow me to take advantage of any ambient window lighting and reduce the power consumed by artificial lighting.

But this is an advanced feature and not something I anticipate needing soon.